FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 19, 2024
LA FREEDOM CAUCUS TO SENATE: POLITICAL PARTIES SHOULD ELECT THEIR OWN NOMINEES
BATON ROUGE—The Louisiana Freedom Caucus (LAFC) stands firmly for a party primary system that allows political parties to elect their own nominees.
“There’s a saying in the Louisiana legislature, the House proposes good bills and the Senate kills them. The Senate badly wounded the party primary bill but was not able to kill it. First, they removed the state legislature and all statewide officials from the perfectly reasonable party primary bill that would have allowed established political parties to elect their own nominees for office in Louisiana,” said Beryl Amedée, Chairman of the Louisiana Freedom Caucus.
“It was not good enough for the Senate that all other persons who qualified would run against these party nominees in the general election. Then they added the State Supreme Court, BESE, and the Public Service Commission into the party primary mix, but added measures to allow persons not registered as Republicans or Democrats to vote to choose Republican and Democrat Party nominees. This left us with a watered-down version of what Governor Landry asked for,” Amedée added. “For the Senate to tell our state parties they have to let other-than-registered members of the party vote for their party’s choice is not acceptable. We will continue to work to make sure our political parties have the right to nominate their own candidates exclusively before the general election takes place.”
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